The three originalMass Effectgames combined firearm combat with RPG elements to great success, andthe legendary re-release worked out many of the kinks that made the fighting feel datedand janky. Still, there’s one noticeable difference between the guns inMass Effect 1and its sequels, and that change lies in how ammunition functions.
While the second and third games utilize a much more traditional and familiar method of guns using limited bullets to shoot with, picking up more as they go, the first game did something entirely different that madeammo essentially infinite, so long as players measured out the timing of their shots. It wasn’t perfect, but it gave the game a unique style of gun combat that was backed up by the lore, and the next game in the series may do well by taking some inspiration from this mechanic.
Mass Effect 1’s Cooldown Mechanic Was Replaced
A Switch To A More Traditional Ammunition System
In the first game, the player’s weapons did not use ammo butcould instead fire for a certain amount of time before they built up too much heat.Letting a gun get too hot made it unusable for a certain length of time, meaning that players needed to pace their fire in order to stay effective mid-combat. Better guns had higher heat thresholds, and martial classes had access to types of firearms with better heat management.
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Within the game’s codex, this was explained as relying on the titular mass effect to function. A block of metal was inserted into a weapon in place of a magazine, and the gun’s inner workings shaved off tiny bits of that block and fired them at supersonic speeds by altering their mass.This allowed for a gun to be fired thousands of times before reloading, making it near unnecessary mid-operation. It’s a cool idea that fits the high-tech setting of the world, but itchanged in later gameswith the implementation of “thermal clips.”
Basically, thermal clips were now what kept the gun from overheating, and could be used to fire a certain number of shots before needing replacement. This kept the lore of the first game intact butreplaced the cooldown mechanic with one that was, at its most basic level, identical to having bullets and ammunition.
Why Other Mass Effect Games Abandoned This Mechanic
Favoring Familiarity Over Experimentation
This change came along with anoverall simplification of the series' combat, with powers cut down and the ways in which weapons were upgraded reworked completely. Bioware’s focus was on the franchise’s story and characters rather than its firearms, which was overall the correct choice, given that’s where the strengths ofMass Effectreside.Mass Effect 2had the simplest combat mechanics, while3expanded a bit more, andAndromedagot more experimentalagain.
The class system also saw several reworks, with different classes sometimes providing different weapon proficiencies and other times inflicting fewer restrictions on the powers the player could learn through them.
Mass Effect 1’s mechanics were ambitious but didn’t work exactly as intended upon initial release, and simplification was likely necessary to streamline development. With a new game on the way, however,there is room once again for Bioware to do something differentand possibly even bring back some mechanics from the original title in the trilogy.
Why Mass Effect 5 Should Bring Cooldowns Back
Mass Effecttakes place in a world shaped by extraterrestrial scientific discoveries, and its combat should reflect that. The implementation ofbiotic and tech-based abilitiesgoes a long way, but there are many ways to make the firearm portion of combat also feel unique, andusing some form of cooldown mechanic instead of ammunition might help. It could make sense lore-wise as well, going along with a technological collapse after the destruction of the Reapers.
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Especially with all the different space-faring species in theMass Effectuniverse, there’s an opportunity to make different kinds of weaponry that use different kinds of ammo.Mass Effect 3explored this a little, withsalarian weapons mainly firing sticky explosives and Prothean weapons using beam effects, but this could be taken a level deeper in a next-gen game with more performance capability. Wherever theMass Effectseries goes next, it is almost certain that the combat mechanics will see changes and improvements from previous titles.
